


How do You Know Yourself?

by VrianaDax



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 07:40:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12206793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VrianaDax/pseuds/VrianaDax
Summary: Ashley Drake is a simple cargo hauler with a routine loop when she meets an oddity in a place where oddity is shunned.





	How do You Know Yourself?

The heavy dull pound of watered earth being turned reverberated under careful eyes filled with rich warmth in their bottomless black. Captivating eyes that were abnormally large to the young observer standing above the mixing area. She, like the workers, was alien to this place but she, unlike them, was a stranger to the dirt and dust that they were mixing with the contents of the large vats that stood in clusters on the ridge with her.

It had always looked to her as if some gargantuan toddler had been making mud pies, a thought disproved when paired with the solemnity in the air, but confirmed with each ring of giggles from the beautiful children darting through the maze of equipment and supplies. They filled the air with their painfully perfect cries of victory and defeat. Small and endearingly scruffy, the children glowed bolstered by play and enthusiasm. Dimmer, their elders in rhythmic work sang together: their melodies resonating to her soul. Replacing the bright eagerness of the young midnight eyes, patient calm suffused the adults’ steady efforts.

Seeing them made her feel as if she were swathed in lead cloth; moving with lurches and abrupt jerks.They however, moved with a casual gracefulness that reminded her of the planets and stars locked in their tidal dances. Every one of the workers and children had, to her, perfectly symmetrical faces accented by their large eyes. The irises, leaving almost no white, were a hundred shades of black; the subtleties between each individual were so close that if asked to put a name to each she would find herself lacking. Matching their varicolored eyes all had hair of a true black that hinted at iridescence in the shifting of singular strands; every head of hair was pinned, twisted or braided; none let their obsidian locks move free, not even the children.

She savored the deliberateness of those around her adding to the intense allure of soft and striking features. Their lithe towering figures held little tension having no conceptions that pushed them into panic, knowing that everything has its own time and place.

The quartermaster measured the quantities of liquid, exchanging the vats for stacks of wet clay cut uniformly into individually wrapped slabs. The pallets full, he handed her a slip. His mouth turned up in a slight grin, revealing only two of his pearly teeth, relieved by her imminent departure.  The transaction complete she started towards the cab of the vehicle and paused. In the reflective material now wrapped around the clay she studied herself.  


End file.
